Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Eilidh Whiteford

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Lady is right. I discussed this matter with Baroness Amos, who heads up the UN agency tackling humanitarian assistance. It has now presented its third report to the UN Security Council, outlining grave concerns about the Syrian regime’s defiance, in many respects, of the resolution on allowing humanitarian access. Our role is to continue to push and to look at ways we can remove some of the barriers that the regime is putting in place as excuses to stop aid getting through.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

As the conflict in Syria spills over into Iraq, the Red Crescent estimates that up to 500,000 additional people may have been displaced from their homes. What are the Government doing to anticipate and resource the emerging humanitarian needs in the region?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady is quite right, and nearly 250,000 Syrian refugees have crossed the border into Iraq, to which we were already providing some support. She may be aware that I have announced an initial £3 million of humanitarian support. In addition, I am proud that a DFID team was one of the first on the ground, having been sent out last Thursday to assess need and work directly with UN agencies setting up the camps that are now required.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Eilidh Whiteford

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Ultimately, we need a political solution to move forward in Syria, which is why the Geneva II talks are so important. We all hope that we can see progress there, but nobody underestimates the challenges.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

May I press the Secretary of State on the refugee issue? Millions of people have been displaced from their homes, and it is only right that the UK takes its share of those refugees and gives sanctuary under its international obligations. I urge the Secretary of State to make the UK Government do the right thing.

[Justine Greening]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that we have absolutely played a leading role in Europe in accepting asylum-seeking Syrians. When I go into the region and talk directly to refugees—I have done that on many occasions now—they are clear that they want the chance to go back home to Syria. That hope of going home is precisely why, having moved across the border into Jordan and Lebanon, they have stayed in the camps in those communities.

Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

Debate between Justine Greening and Eilidh Whiteford

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I agree: it is pretty bizarre. I think that we should ramp up this work, because it can have real benefits for people in developing countries. I thank my hon. Friend for his interest and his efforts, which have been incredibly important.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Last week the Secretary of State spoke about the needs of women and girls in the context of development. What explicit commitments to gender equality have been built into the Government’s plans to promote economic growth and responsible trade in developing countries, and how will that be measured?

[Justine Greening]

Ensuring that we understand the impact of our programmes on women and girls is increasingly dependent on our obtaining good facts—in other words, gender-disaggregated data. All our country programmes involve thinking about how the work that we do affects women and girls. When discussing our economic development strategy with business leaders this morning, I made it clear to them that the issue of women and girls is perhaps the most powerful in driving changes on the ground, not just short-term changes through the alleviation of poverty but changes in attitudes towards women.

UK’s Development Work (Girls and Women)

Debate between Justine Greening and Eilidh Whiteford

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I think I can provide that assurance. Our involvement has not been about the rights and wrongs of abortion. In countries where abortion is permitted, and where we can support programmes that make safe abortion possible rather than allowing unsafe abortions, that is what we have focused on.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I very much welcome today’s statement. Earlier this week, I chaired a joint meeting of the all-party parliamentary groups on international development and the environment and on water and sanitation in developing countries. We learned that, notwithstanding the huge progress that has been made on access to water, sanitation and hygiene, women and girls are consistently and substantially left behind when we measure success, not least because of the taboos around menstruation and childbirth. Are the Government confident that the ways in which they intend to measure the effectiveness of their new initiatives will fully capture their impact on women and girls and uphold their basic rights and dignities?

[Justine Greening]

I am confident, but there is a lot of work to be done. At a basic level, we are now focusing on gender-disaggregated data, so that we can understand the impact of our programmes in terms not only of overall value for money but of how they impact on men and on women. That is a significant programme of work for us. The hon. Lady is right to highlight this point, and we are increasingly starting to look at how our programmes affect women and girls explicitly.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Justine Greening and Eilidh Whiteford

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The point is that we faced an increase in oil prices that had fed through pretty directly to pump prices. The increase in the cost of fuel was not just impacting on motorists, but having a huge impact on hauliers, on the cost of living and on businesses. We had to decide what was the right thing to do. I think that the right and fair thing to do was to share the burden by taking some of the additional profits that oil companies were making—profits at a level that far exceeded the projections of the companies when they made those investments. I will come on to answer the question from the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) about projected future investment. I will give a telling statistic that makes my point very well.

We expect pre-tax profits from oil and gas production in the UK to be £24 billion in the current tax year, which is a 50% increase in just two years, primarily as a result of the increased oil price. Oil companies can afford to pay a bit more, but hard-pressed motorists, hauliers and businesses deserve to pay less.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am pleased that the Economic Secretary recognises the impact that fuel prices have been having on business and hauliers, particularly those in more remote and rural areas. It is precisely those areas, including the parts of north-east Scotland represented by myself and by the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) and the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith), who tabled the amendment, that face a hugely disproportionate impact on jobs and investment in the oil and gas sector.

[Justine Greening]

We have just agreed to clause 19 without either the Scottish National party or the Labour party having divided the House. If we are willing to accept the cost of the motoring package in clause 19, which I think we all accept was badly needed to support motorists, hauliers and businesses, we also have to accept some responsibility for putting in place a way of funding it. Clause 7 is how we will do that.

Fuel Costs

Debate between Justine Greening and Eilidh Whiteford

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right. We do not even know whether the Opposition think that going ahead with the fuel duty rise, which they planned, is a good idea. We know that they rejected calls from Opposition parties to look at alternatives when they were in power. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bristol East will explain her party’s position today.

My hon. Friend is also right to point out the difficult challenges that the current Government face. He has rightly pointed out that the level of deficit and debt that we have been left as a country costs the British taxpayer £120 million every single day. To put that in the context of a 1p a litre rise in fuel duty, which is worth £500 million, the British taxpayer will pay as much in debt interest over the course of four or five days as they will pay in fuel duty, if fuel duty is subject to a 1p a litre rise. That demonstrates two things, the first of which is the importance of tackling the deficit. Clearly, this country cannot continue to pay this expense of £120 million a day and it has to be tackled, because we are spending more on servicing our debt than on transport. The challenge for this country is that if we do not get this £500 million of real money from fuel duty, it has to come from somewhere else. The Government have made it clear that they want to try to protect key spending, for example, on the NHS—the Labour party did not want to do that—and schools.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be unfair for the disproportionate burden of that tax to fall on people in rural and remote areas?

[Justine Greening]

As I have said, the Government recognise the particular pressures that motoring costs put on people living in rural areas, which is one of the reasons why we want to try to get a derogation and undertake pilot schemes in some of those areas to see whether we can implement a rural fuel rebate. I hope that the hon. Lady acknowledges that we recognise those challenges.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the Goodison review and that the Scotland Bill is passing through Parliament right now. We are making some changes on tax, and I think he will welcome those measures to strengthen the devolution settlement.[Official Report, 15 February 2011, Vol. 523, c. 3MC.]

I shall now, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman would like me to, address my comments to the measures we have been talking about and what we are considering. Only this Government have been looking at how best to help drivers, including those in Scotland and Wales. We have demonstrated our concerns about these issues both before and since coming into government. Indeed, one of the first things that the coalition Government did was to get the Office for Budget Responsibility to look at how oil prices affect the economy and feed into public finance.

This is a complex issue, and we have to make sure that whatever we do is not only fair but affordable. It would not be right of me to pre-empt the Chancellor or the Budget, but, as we promised in the June Budget, we are considering a range of options. We have already discussed the rural fuel duty rebate. The Government understand the challenges faced by people in rural areas in relation to fuel costs, which those of us in city and urban areas perhaps do not face. I know that those people cannot easily shop around nearby petrol stations to get the best deal in the way that other people can. I understand the arguments about the lack of public transport as an alternative and that the car is often the most realistic mode of transport. That is precisely way we are working towards getting a derogation so that we can get on with putting in place pilots to look at how a rural fuel rebate would work.

[Dr Whiteford]

Is it intended that at a future date the derogation pilots should extend to other rural and remote parts of Scotland not included in the current pilot scheme?

[Justine Greening]

We have yet to decide the exact scope of the pilots. I assume from her question that the hon. Lady would like her area to be included. No doubt she will write to me formally. I will take her comments on board. As I said, we are already working towards putting in place the pilots for a rural fuel duty rebate which will reduce the cost of fuel in the most remote areas of Britain. As with trying to tackle the feed-through of unpredictable oil prices to the pump prices, the previous Government rejected that outright, but the coalition Government are committed to getting it under way.

As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary announced in October, we wish to conduct a rural fuel duty pilot and look at how a rural fuel duty rebate could work in practice. We want to examine the underlying issues and see how that could be applied. The initial pilot could deliver a duty discount of up to 5p per litre on all petrol and diesel. That would save some drivers in rural areas upwards of £500 a year.